


that's how the light gets in

by AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: 3 Sentence Fiction, Christmas, Gen, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 05:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17319263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Narnian Christmas traditions, and English ones.





	that's how the light gets in

"The dawn today is farther north than yesterday, farther north than the day before," says Peter as the oldest Narnian present, lighting the golden candle.

"The longest night has come," says Susan as (by vote) the kindest, lighting the blue, "and the sun has risen since."

"Winter's worst approaches," says Edmund, "and it will seem always winter, never Christmas." (This particular tradition is largely his design, since after a hundred years with no Christmas nobody knew what to do that was _Narnian_ rather than borrowed wholesale from Archenland, though he is not entirely sure how _he_ got stuck with designing it. He did not engineer it to give the third voice and the green candle to the Narnian—which, when the light-bringers are the four Pevensies, is _always_ himself—who feels themselves to have the greatest apology to make from the past year: absolutely not, how dare you accuse him of such conniving behavior.)

"But spring will follow winter," says Lucy, voted bravest, "and Christmastime is here." She touches the flame to the red candle's wick, and then the white.

There is a fifth speaking part, but it generally falls to the first speaker as the fifth candle does to the fourth speaker, since Aslan so rarely attends these gatherings: "Joy to us all," says Peter.

(Helen's children do not shut her out of this moment, but she listens from the kitchen, watching the flicker of five candles in the darkened house, and wonders once again why they so often seem so far away.)

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](http://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


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